Radiological imagery method making a zone of interest in an organ correspond to an associated part of the network

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention relate to a method of processing a radiological image of an organ, the organ being connected to a flow circulation network, and comprising steps according to which: an operator or a processing means defines a contour to delimit a zone of interest in the radiological image of the organ; the processing means determines part of the network in which the flow supplies the zone of interest or originates from this zone of interest; and a display means displays the determined part of the network.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A method of processing a radiological image of an organ, the organ being connected to a flow circulation network, the method comprising:
 defining a contour to delimit a zone of interest of the organ in the radiological image of the organ; 
 identifying and associating, via a processor, at least a part of the flow circulation network with the zone of interest that the flow circulation network supplies blood to, or which originates from the zone of interest; 
 the step of identifying comprising: 
 identifying all terminations in the flow circulation network associated with points contained in the zone of interest; 
 starting from the terminations and working opposite a direction of blood flow, 
 identifying at least one vessel of the flow circulation network supplying blood flow to the zone of interest; and 
 isolating and displaying on a display the zone of interest of the organ and displaying and highlighting the associated part of the network. 
 
     
     
       2. The method of  claim 1 , wherein an intensity of pixels corresponding to the associated part of the network is increased. 
     
     
       3. The method of  claim 1 , wherein pixels corresponding to the associated part of the network have a predetermined color that contrasts with the colors of other pixels in the image. 
     
     
       4. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the defining a contour to delimit a zone of interest being performed with an operator or the processor. 
     
     
       5. The method of  claim 4 , wherein the processor determines a direction of circulation of flow in different branches of the flow circulation network, and wherein the processing unit determines correspondences between points in the organ and one or more branches in the flow circulation network, as a function of the flow circulation direction. 
     
     
       6. The method of  claim 5 , wherein the processor determines a direction of circulation of flow in different branches of the flow circulation network by an analysis of the variation of a radius of the branch along each branch. 
     
     
       7. The method of  claim 4 , wherein the processor applies an algorithm to the image of the organ to determine a pattern of the flow circulation network to identify different branches making up the network. 
     
     
       8. The method of  claim 4 , wherein the radiological image is a composite image composed of several images acquired by different techniques and/or at different instants. 
     
     
       9. The method of  claim 4 , wherein the radiological image is a composite image composed of a first image acquired by X-ray tomography and a second image acquired by positron emission tomography, the resulting composite image displaying both the flow circulation network that supplies the organ and an active zone of a tumor.